Sweet Characters

For my day job, I have to work with characters on a daily basis. But I almost always work digitally. I model and animate digital 3D characters. But sometimes it is fun to work analog and model characters for real. It is so much fun to be able to touch your work, look around it, and even eat it.

Yes eating your creations, it is possible if you make your characters with the Modeling Paste by the Cake Dutchess. My sister-in-law Etty van Urk, aka the Cake Dutchess, is a master in modeling characters for cake decorations. She can make the most wonderful characters and she makes video’s showing you how you can make these characters yourself.

Cake Dutchess – Modeling Challenges

I have had the pleasure to have collaborated on two modeling challenges Etty organized. In these modeling challenges, Etty creates characters that you can follow along with her. I made the character designs for these challenges. For the first challenge I designed a baby angle and for the second challenge, I designed a boy and a girl character with different outfits. The artists that participate in the challenge have to model these characters with modeling paste.

My own attempt

The first challenge, with the baby angel, I joined the other artist in modeling him. I loved working with the Cake Dutchess Modeling Paste. The paste itself is white and I had to mix it with food coloring to achieve the correct colors. It is really easy to work with, it doesn’t stick (as much) on your hands like fondant or marzipan. It is very elastic and doesn’t tear quickly. Therefore it is a fantastic product to work with. Here are some pictures of my progress. Not bad for my first attempt with modeling paste right?

For the second challenge, I created this boy and girl character, in summer and winter outfits, and dressed up as a princess and knight. Etty started the challenge by modeling the girl in summer clothing that the participants could follow her process watching her modeling life on Facebook. This is the end result and underneath is a progress photo of some of the other participant’s work in progress.

The previouse challengese where a great success, so Etty will most likely give a lot more fun challenges. I have heard that he next challenge will be in September and the theme will be mermaids. I will design a mermaid, especially for this challenge again. So if you want to join that challenge, follow the Cake Dutches on Facebook for updates on that challenge. Of course, I will post an update on my blog as well as soon as I know more. So stay tuned!

I loved working with the Cake Dutchess Modeling paste and perhaps in the future, I can make a tutorial for this as well. Although I think it’s best if you check out the tutorials made by Etty. Her video’s are amazing, fun and easy to follow! Here is a link to her Youtube Page

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About The Author

Nanda van Dijk is a Character artist with over 8 years of experience working on games, commercials and feature films. She graduated in 2010 from the Utrecht School of Arts and finished the 3D Character program at Animschool in 2014. Her specialty is 3D Character animation but she has also worked as a 2D animator, Illustrator, Modeler, Rigger and Story Artist. Nanda has worked on 5 European Feature films, The Little Vampire, Hodja fra Pjort, Den Utrolige historie om den kæmpestore pære, Tripple Trappel and Heinz the movie (will be released in 2018)
Now she gives courses in Animation and Rigging at the Film Academy in Amsterdam and she creates tutorials for her website the Character Creation Guide about how you can design, model, rig and animate characters for animation.